


Princely Virtues

by LadyRhiyana



Series: Royalty!AU [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Born into different houses, Canon Divergence - Robert's Rebellion, Dothraki!Brienne, F/M, King!Tywin Lannister, Kingsguard!Brienne, Prince!Jaime Lannister, Warm and fluffy - until it's not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21717994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRhiyana/pseuds/LadyRhiyana
Summary: Five alternate universes in which Jaime Lannister is the Crown Prince of the Seven Kingdoms.
Relationships: Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister (ultimately doomed), Cersei Lannister/Khal Drogo, Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: Royalty!AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1576543
Comments: 29
Kudos: 204





	Princely Virtues

**Author's Note:**

> A/N 1: Just a warning: part 5 contains doomed Jaime/Cersei and major character death. I have tried to treat Cersei with as much respect as possible. Please be kind. 
> 
> A/N 2: Sharp-eyed readers will spot part 1 as an expansion of my King!Tywin drabble, found at Chapter 22 of Stray Sparks. 
> 
> *A/N 3: Re: Sappho: in this universe, Sappho was a Lyseni poet.

**One**

**

Brienne doesn’t miss the whispering and the laughter that greet her when she pulls off her helm and reveals herself to be a woman. She may have defeated ser Barristan Selmy and the Hound and even the gorgeous Knight of Flowers to win the tourney, but no amount of victories can make up for her lack of a cock. 

Still. She had won, and they can’t deny her, no matter how severely King Tywin frowns upon her when he awards her the victor’s purse and a garland of golden roses. 

For a moment she’s nonplussed. Should she pick any one of the highborn maidens watching on, and tangle them up in rumours of Sapphic* love? Should she pick Lady Cersei Baratheon, as the highest ranking lady present and the daughter of the King? 

No. The lady of Storm’s End is more than capable of laughing cruelly and refusing to accept the garland. 

And then Brienne sees Prince Jaime all in crimson and gold, leaning back in his chair, his circlet tipped at a rakish angle on his head. He tips his goblet to her in ironic salute, his eyes laughing at her predicament. 

Brave knights are supposed to give the victor’s garland to the fairest, aren’t they? Prince Jaime is golden and magnificent, and though he is careless and arrogant and often hateful, he is by far the handsomest man in all Seven Kingdoms combined. 

And really, this is all his fault. If he hadn’t needled and mocked her so that she swore to enter the tournament and _show_ him she could be just as good as any man, she wouldn’t be in this position. 

Stubbornly defiant, in full view of the court and thousands of spectators she spurs her horse up to the royal box and extends her lance towards Prince Jaime, offering the garland of golden roses to her chosen Queen of Love and Beauty. 

King Tywin’s face is thunderous. Lady Cersei’s eyes burn like the fires of hell. Her hands clench bone-white on the arms of her chair. 

Prince Jaime doesn’t laugh. He grins at her, sharp and reckless, takes the offered garland and makes a great show of placing it on his head. Standing up, he beckons her closer, leans over the partition – 

And kisses her on the cheek – a swift, butterfly brush of his lips. 

She blushes a horrible, splotchy red.

** 

Later that night, after the feasting, she’s standing on the parapet of the Red Keep, looking up at the stars. She’d had a great deal of rich food and three – or perhaps four – goblets of Arbor Red, unwatered; she’s feeling warm and pleasantly distant from the whispered taunts and hidden laughter of the court. 

Prince Jaime had grinned at her, sharp and reckless, but he hadn’t made mock of her. He hadn’t been unkind; he had been – acknowledging a hit. She’d seen that same look in his eyes when she’d managed to surprise him in the practice yard. 

The thought of the many hard-fought bouts they’d shared, eyes locked as they circled and tested each other, the ring of sword on shield and the shuffling of their quick footwork, leaves her feeling particularly warm. 

He is the best swordsman she’d ever faced. 

The first man to ever show her the respect she craved. 

She doesn’t regret crowning him with the victor’s garland. It’s only the truth, after all. 

Footsteps sound behind her, and she turns to see the prince making his careful way along the parapet, weaving slightly on his feet; he’s still wearing the crown of golden roses, though it’s tipped at a drunken angle over his ear. 

“Lady Brienne,” he drawls, his voice ever so slightly slurred, “I concede you the victory. You are every bit as good – and even better – than any mere man.” He stops an arm’s-length away from her and leans against a stone crenellation, his golden hair bright in the torch-light. “Though I must point out that you didn’t have to face me today.” 

She scowls at him, exasperated. “Oh, piss off.” 

He laughs delightedly. “D’you know – you’re the only one who ever tells me the truth. The rest of ‘em,” he waves a lazy hand, “they all tell me what they think I want to hear. But you – your eyes don’t lie. You called me Kingslayer, the first time we met.” 

She flushes. “I – I didn’t mean –”

“Yes you did.” He smiles, sharp and humourless. “It’s only the truth after all, isn’t it? I broke my sacred oath and killed the king so that my father could take the throne.”

“Didn’t you?” 

“Oh, of course. And look at me now. The handsome golden prince.” He laughs, tipping his head back to gaze up at the stars. “I should have run off to Essos before the coronation. But no matter how I begged, she wouldn’t come with me.”

Brienne hesitates. Prince Jaime squints at her, his eyes slowly lighting with amusement. “What – nothing to say? Don’t tell me you haven’t heard the rumours, Lady Brienne.” 

“I have heard them,” she says stiffly. “But I did not credit them. Surely not –” she stopped. “Oh.”

“Yes. Oh. And so I stayed. But still, sometimes I dream of just – sailing away, far from Westeros, from my father and my sister, to a place where no one even knows my name. Tyrion will make a much better king, anyway.”

Brienne thinks of his eyes on hers, fierce and true, as they spar; the way her heart fluttered when he brushed his lips against her cheek.

She gathers up all her courage. 

“I’ll come with you,” she says. He raises his brows, and she forges recklessly ahead. “If you truly want to run away from it all, I’ll come with you. You’ll need someone to protect you, after all.”

His curling smile softens, just a little. “Lady Brienne,” he says, a warm light in his eyes. “You are a marvel.” And then, because he can never stop pushing, he adds – “Only to protect me?”

It takes every ounce of courage she has to meet his gaze. “Not only that,” she whispers. 

He smiles when he kisses her. 

**

They run off to Essos together that very night. 

**

Long years later, Tyrion does make a much better king. 

** 

**Two**

**

“What do you think?” Tyrion asks Jaime. 

Blurry footage of snow and ice and what they are asked to believe are the fabled White Walkers plays over and over, the muted screams and curses of the Night Watch ending in a sickening crunch and a sudden halt in filming. 

“Father will never believe it,” Jaime says. “He’s too grounded in politics and war and economics, not – not wildling horror stories of snarks and grumpkins, and obscure footage probably drawn from the depths of YouTube.”

“I’m well aware of what Father will say,” Tyrion retorts. “I’m asking what you think. You’re the commander of the royal armies. I believe that it’s true. But when has my opinion ever mattered?”

Jaime gives him a wry, lopsided smile. “It matters to me, brother.” 

“Then trust me,” Tyrion says. “The true danger lies in the North.”

“An army of the dead,” Jaime sighs. “White Walkers and ice spiders and a mysterious Night King. If this were a thousand years ago, perhaps –”

In the corner, Brienne Tarth clears her throat. “Your grace, if I may.”

Jaime turns his gaze on the woman who had once been his own particular Kingsguard, who had fought beside him at the Trident and stayed with him through defeat and imprisonment and maiming, before he sent her off to keep an oath he could not fulfil. 

He’d expected her to come back after she’d succeeded in her quest. But she’d gone native, it seems. Abandoned him for the North. He wonders what Sansa Stark has to offer that he does not.

“Go on,” he says. Despite everything, some remnant of the old, unthinking trust between them remains. 

“Your father the King may or may not believe us,” she says. “But as ridiculous as it may sound, the army of the dead is coming. They don’t care how advanced the world has become.”

She steps closer, puts her hand on his arm. “Please, Jaime,” she says. “It’s not a matter of loyalty any more. This is about survival.”

** 

**Three**

**

Lady Catelyn leads the way into the dungeons and raises the lantern, casting a golden glow on the cell – and on the prisoner curled up in chains on the damp floor. 

“Kingslayer,” she hisses. 

The chained man stirs, squinting against the light. Brienne draws in her breath – the golden hair is lank and matted, and his handsome features are obscured by dirt and blood and bruises, but she can see that his eyes are wildfire green. 

Prince Jaime Lannister. The Crown Prince of the Seven Kingdoms. The soiled knight, once of the Kingsguard, who had broken his sacred oath and killed Aerys Targaryen so that Lord Tywin Lannister could take the throne. 

She’d known, of course, that the Starks had taken him in the Whispering Wood and held him hostage against his father’s reprisals. She’d never thought to actually meet him. 

** 

Over the next few days and weeks, she has ample opportunity to take his measure. 

They say that extremity brings out the best and the worst in men. Well. When they take his hand and strip away his pride and his arrogance and all his quick-tongued irony, she sees neither a golden prince nor an oathbreaking monster, but only a man stripped of everything but his own self. 

**

**Four**

**

The VIP room of the exclusive nightclub on the Street of Silk is packed. Still, because Tyrion is Tyrion, he manages to get a table for himself and Jaime, and two bottles of the finest Arbour red. 

The décor is all red velvet and swirling psychedelic paintings. The music is too loud, the atmospheric mood lighting is too low, and the other patrons are all beautiful 20-somethings with smoky kohl-darkened eyes. 

At thirty-four years old, Jaime feels ancient and world-weary.

“Jaime,” Tyrion says, pouring himself another glass of wine. “Brother. You are a prince.” 

Jaime sighs. “Yes, thank you Tyrion.” He puts his hand over his glass. Unlike his siblings, alcohol is not one of his vices – nor is it his particular coping method. 

“You are literally a handsome prince,” Tyrion continues, peering drunkenly at him. “Granted, our father is a usurper who came to power after a particularly nasty political coup. And yes, you did execute the previous king in full view of the palace CCTV cameras. Bad show, that.”

Jaime winces. “Is this going anywhere?” he demands. “Because if it’s not, I’m leaving.” 

“Make sure you take Brienne with you,” Tyrion grins. “Your ever-present shadow. Superbly discreet and _so_ devoted to you.” 

“Right,” Jaime says, standing up abruptly and looking around for his black-suited security. Almost as if she could read his mind, Brienne was by his side, sturdy and reassuring. 

“What I’m saying,” Tyrion stands up, staggering a little, and gets to the point. “What I’m saying is – you should take more advantage of it. Being a handsome prince, I mean.”

Jaime only sighs. Brienne speaks into her earpiece, and Tyrion’s own security – unshaven, smirking Bronn – detaches himself from the shadows and ushers Tyrion away. 

**

“What did he mean by that, do you think?” Jaime asks Brienne, once they’re in the discreet black car and on their way back to the palace. 

They had braved the paparazzi, Jaime flashing his most practiced golden smile. He knows the picture will be on the front of tomorrow’s tabloids – _Kingslayer paints the town red!_ – and wonders if Aerys’ death will follow him even into the grave. 

Should he have waited to drag the king into a CCTV blind-spot before executing him? Should he have lied about it and disowned his act?

No. He doesn’t regret killing Aerys so publicly. Someone had to do it. No one else would have. 

Sometimes, though, when he sees a shadow in Brienne’s eyes, he wonders. 

Tyrion has a reputation for being a drunken playboy. Unlike Jaime, Tyrion is always in and out of the tabloids, always good-natured and drunk and a positive devil with the ladies. Pictures of him in a rumpled suit, his tie unbound, grinning rakishly with his arm around his girlfriend _du jour_ are common tabloid fodder. 

The people of King’s Landing cheer ironically when he waves to them, call him the Imp and generally approve of him. 

Not Jaime, though. Jaime had broken his oath and murdered a man he had sworn to protect. 

The media – and the people – have a very different relationship with him. 

“I couldn’t say, ser,” Brienne says, noncommittal and polite. 

He turns his head to look at her. “Do you think I’m handsome?” he asks, smiling crookedly. 

To his surprise, she flushes and looks away. 

_Oh_ , he thinks – almost a revelation. _So that’s what Tyrion meant._

**

**Five**

**

“Cersei,” Jaime whispers, shaking his sister’s shoulder urgently. “Wake up. Come on, we have to go.”

She wakes quickly, her purple eyes wide and afraid. “What is it?” she asks. “Is it Father? Is Rhaegar still alive?” 

“Rhaegar is dead, Cersei, you know that,” Jaime says impatiently. “And now Father is too.” He drags her out of bed and thrusts a bundle of dirty clothes at her. “We have to go. The Lannisters are sacking the city and the Northerners are bearing down on us. If we stay here, we’re dead.” 

“Father’s dead?!” she asks, stepping into a stained tunic and breeches and bundling her silver-gold hair up under a cap without complaint. “Who – what about the Kingsguard?”

“It doesn’t matter!” he snaps, not meeting her eyes. “Now quickly. Leave everything behind and let’s go. Elia and the children will meet us on the way.” 

** 

But Elia and the children never come. 

**

They head for Dragonstone, trying to reach their mother and their younger brother, but by the time they reach Storm’s End news comes that the Queen had died in childbirth and Prince Viserys and the newborn princess had died when the ship carrying them to Essos had been wrecked. 

They’re alone in the world, friendless, penniless and afraid. Rhaegar is dead, and Prince Lewyn Martell and ser Jonothor Darry had died with him. Ser Barristan Selmy is gravely wounded. Ser Arthur Dayne, ser Gerold Hightower and ser Oswald Whent are who knows where. 

The last of their father’s seven had died in the Red Keep. He had died, loyal and obedient to the end, trying to stop Jaime from killing the King. 

“We have no one but each other now,” Cersei says fiercely. “No one else in the world. Only us, together.”

**

Not once, in all the years that pass, does Jaime tell Cersei how – or why – their father died. 

** 

Long years pass. They wander from court to court like beggars, Cersei fierce in her determination to regain the Seven Kingdoms, Jaime ever her quieter, deadly shadow. As the years pass, Cersei’s determination grows angry and resentful, and she rages at the constant smiling platitudes and petty insults they receive. 

“One day we’ll show them,” she whispers to Jaime, as they lie entangled with each other in the dark hours of the night. “We’ll show them fire and blood.” 

**

Cersei chooses a barbaric Dothraki warlord and takes him to husband. There is a great feast, at which a number of gifts are laid at her feet – a Pentoshi merchant gifts her with three ancient, petrified dragon eggs. 

She cares nothing for dead stone, she says after the merchant departs. Jaime can have them. 

And so Jaime takes the dragon eggs for his own. 

** 

Khal Drogo has forty thousand Dothraki riders, each one a fierce, shrieking horseman deadly with sword and bow and spear. Jaime is fascinated by their fluid way of fighting, and quickly makes friends with the Khal’s blood-riders with the aid of Ser Jorah Mormont, an old, weather-beaten exile who comes to swear fealty to Jaime. 

Jaime spends his days riding, learning the Dothraki tongue and improving his swordsmanship. He deliberately tires himself out, so that he doesn’t have to see his beloved sister – the other half of himself – lying with the hulking barbarian warlord. 

She still comes to him occasionally, but it’s only in secret; rushed, furtive interludes hidden from all eyes. He honestly thinks he would go mad, if it wasn’t for the newest and youngest – and fiercest – of Khal Drogo’s blood-riders: a big, brawny woman named Brienne. Like all the best warriors among the Dothraki, her braid is long and woven with many tinkling bells; she has never been defeated in combat. 

As the long days pass and they travel farther and farther into the Dothraki Sea, Jaime grows ever closer to Brienne. They spar together, and they ride together, and eventually – when Brienne finally strokes her hand through his silver-gold hair with curious interest – they lie together, under the sun and stars, in full sight of heaven. 

** 

Cersei announces that she is with child and the khal – and the khalasar – celebrate with a great feast. The khal announces that his son will be the Stallion who Mounts the World, and vows to cross the Bitter Water to take back the Seven Kingdoms for him. 

But soon the khal is brought low by his own arrogance and a witch’s deliberate maltreatment. Weeping, Cersei smothers him in his sleep. 

She tries to take over the khalasar. But the former blood-riders are restless and refuse to serve her; the khalasar melts away in the night, the khal’s great following of forty thousand riders reduced to old men, young boys and women – and Brienne, by Jaime’s side as always, stubborn and loyal and brave. 

Husband gone, army gone, Cersei is still indomitable; she holds her head high and vows to continue on. 

But then a third blow falls: she loses the child. 

The child was monstrous, the witch says, with scales and wings and a tail. She doesn’t say whether it was half-Dothraki or full-blooded Targaryen. But Cersei won’t accept it. She screams and rages and tears her hair, cursing the witch and any who try to take the stillborn babe from her arms. 

She orders a pyre built, swearing that fire will bring the child back, that he will rise like a dragon from the ashes. Jaime begs and pleads with her and tries to stop her, but she orders the witch to be seized and bound to the foot of the bier, and she lays the child down on the wooden platform. 

As a last afterthought, she snatches Jaime’s dragon eggs and places them in the heart of the pyre – _My Rhaego will never draw breath, and your useless stone eggs will never hatch_ – and before Jaime can stop her, she steps onto the platform and drops the torch into the piled-up brush. 

“No!” he screams, racing towards the pyre. “Cersei, no!” 

It’s too late. Fire leaps up, devouring the pyre, and Cersei’s robes catch and go up in magnificent flame. The witch begins to scream, a high-pitched, animal shriek. 

Brienne tries to hold Jaime back. “You can’t go with her,” she cries, “please, Jaime, you’ll die.” 

But Jaime is lost to madness, and tears himself from her arms to throw himself onto the pyre. He and Cersei are the last Targaryens in the world. They had come into the world together, and they will leave it the same way. 

The flames burn, the heat white-hot and scorching, but he pushes his way through to Cersei, her glorious silver-gold hair burning now. She is incandescent as she turns to face him, her eyes alight with joy; she holds the babe against her with one hand and reaches out towards him with the other. 

He takes her hand in his, and the flames close over him. 

**

In the morning, when the fire has burned itself to ashes, ser Jorah and the remaining Dothraki return to find Jaime Targaryen, naked and smoke-blackened, with three tiny dragons curled around him. 

He is unburnt by the flames, save for his ruined right hand, with which he had clutched his sister close even as she burned.

** 

It’s a long, long road back to the Seven Kingdoms, but Brienne rides beside Jaime every step of the way. 

**


End file.
